Kate (kate_nepveu) wrote,
Kate
kate_nepveu

snowflake bookmark

I finished this snowflake bookmark a while ago, but haven't got around to editing the pictures until now.

I modified this pattern from Kincavel Krosses to make it shorter—and as you can see, it's still really too big for all but hardcovers:

[Image: bookmark over open copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell]

I could've left the border off, but I was stitching without a hoop or frame for the first time and I was having so much fun—so fast when you're doing whole stitches!—that I kind of didn't want to stop. SteelyKid saw it as a WIP and demanded it, and she doesn't care if it's flopping out of her books, so it's fine, but yeah, I have no idea why the original design is so long and still purportedly a bookmark.

This was stitched over two on 28-count white evenweave with what I am 95% sure is DMC 4220, Lavender Fields (I used literally all of my only skein on this and so I took it out of my floss inventory list), and DMC 4240, Mid Summer Night. Here's a closer picture (click to enlarge):

[Image: bookmark by itself]

I experimented with putting a backing on it, using a very thin cotton I found at Joann's with the helpful name of "Fabric Quarters". All I did was cut it to rough size, pin it to the bookmark, join them together with the same nun's stitch I use to edge all my bookmarks, and then cut both the evenweave and the backing off. Here's how that came out:

[Images: back of bookmark; closed book with bookmark inside, showing thickness of bookmark]

I could have done a better job of ironing the backing and keeping it flat to the front, and next time I do this I can't rely on the nun's stitch to keep the edges of the backing from fraying, so I'll do something else to make the edges neat before I join them together. But it didn't add anything significant to the thickness, which was my main concern, and though I make my backs neat as a matter of pride, it's nice to have the option.

So that's that. And experimenting with stitching the hand went great—I didn't even have to think about the tension in the stitches, it just came naturally. Works less with for things with lots of quarter stitches, a.k.a. the knotwork bookmark I'm finishing now, but OMG fast on whole stitches. I'm a convert.

(If anyone wants, I can give them the edited image file I used for the pattern, because shortening it means moving the interior slightly to center it.)

(Also posted to cross_stitch.)

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Tags: stitching
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